Name: Chloe Ayling
Community/State: Capel, Western Australia
School: Georgiana Molloy Anglican School
Age/Grade: 16 Years, Year 11
Overcoming the odds – how can we push through barriers to achieve gender equality?
Achieving true gender equality has been a constant battle seen throughout history. As women, we have seen it in our mothers and our grandmothers and we see it today in every woman on the planet, regardless of her circumstances. Despite this long and arduous battle and the significant improvements we have seen in recent years to close the gap between the opportunities presented for men and then those for women, this gap has yet to be closed for good. This situation is dire and there is more that we as the human race could be doing to limit this imbalance. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency states that in Australia, the average gendered pay gap is 14.1% with women still earning on average $239.80 less than men each week. And Western Australia, my home state, has the highest pay gap over Australia at 23.1%.
To have such a large financially impacting issue right in my backyard both shocks me and prompts me to demonstrate what else we could be doing to improve the situation. For example, in schools and in the home environment, girls and boys from a very young age can be taught what it is like to fight for your rights and how to respect others regardless of gender. The majority of first world countries who have the resources to do so can help to provide more education for young girls in disadvantaged countries, and they can provide opportunities for mothers or young families to pursue their goals with a definite focus and improvement on the level of female representation in traditionally powerful, male dominated roles.
Since this fight began, women across the globe have experienced barriers and blockages that have hindered their ability to be seen as equal to men. They have been thought of as lesser or weaker, forced and confided into domestic roles and struggled through a world that believes in male superiority. I know that if the global population begins to see women as equal, women around the world will start to see themselves as who they want to be, not who they were raised or pressured into being and we will witness a huge insurgence of powerful women who are ready to play their part in society and create a new world for both men and women alike.